Taelin Kaan

14 Aran
(Four days after Nala’s rescue)
*1*

Tae blocked a slow punch from Kita and as his forearm met Kita’s wrist he concentrated hard on shielding against the Psi chatter from their physical contact.  It took a lot more concentration than it had in the past but he was relieved to get back the ability to shield touch, even if it had taken three days of hard training at the Cathedral to get it.

Tae turned slightly and thrust his own slow punch in Kita’s direction.  Kita lifted his arm to intercept it and again, Tae concentrated to block as their arms met in the middle.

Over the mornings training, they’d been talking about their relative pasts.  Tae had found out that Kita escaped the Agency around the same time Tae had been forced to leave his job with the police.

Frowning with concentration Tae looked directly at Kita.  “If you don’t mind me asking… what was it like?”
“What do you mean?”  Kita’s square face was relaxed as he focused on their half hearted sparing.
“Just that… what was it like being an Interrogator?”  Blocking another slow punch he noticed Kita’s face tense up a little.  Mentally flailing as he realized that this might be a difficult subject for Kita, he stumbled stupidly on his words.  ”If, if you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, I, I was just curious…”
“No, no… I don’t mind.”  Kita’s voice was quieter than before and Taelin hoped tensely that he hadn’t upset his new friend.

“Well, it was…”  Kita paused as they shuffled sideways back into the center of the large Cathedral meeting room away from the piles of table and chairs.  “It was very very bad.  Imagine the one thing that you hate the most and then imagine someone forcing you to become it.”

“Oh.”  Tae replied, feeling awkward.  “You had no choice?  You couldn’t just say no I want to do something else?”
“Tae, I was A1, there is no choice at A1 level.”
“Couldn’t you escape earlier?  Maybe when you were training?”

“It wasn’t that simple.”  Kita thrust another slow punch aimed at Tae’s head.
Tae ducked out of the way with a frown. “Why?  Can’t you just walk out the door?”  Another punch came his way and he blocked it.

“No, not at all.  In training we’re constantly watched and A1 individuals are behind two lines of security.  You need two types of security pass just to go outside on a mission.”  Kita grabbed his wrist and spun him around sideways as if to throw him, this forced Tae to block the Psi interference for longer.  “Besides, while I was training I was still naive as to the nature of my family.”

Half tied up in a knot Tae continued to focus on his shielding.  “Naive?”
“I thought they were human beings.”  Kita’s voice was quiet almost sad and Tae felt more than a little awkward.  He ducked under Kita’s grip and freed himself from the hold with a firm push and twist with one arm.  He paused a moment, trying to figure out how to change the awkward sensation but still find out more about his new friend.

“So how’d you get out?”
“I refused to Interrogate a child and got demoted to A2.  At that level it was easier to escape.  With the help of Hawk, I got out when the guards were distracted.”

At the mention of their enigmatic leader Tae lost concentration and excitedly replied.  “So, did you meet Hawk?  What’s he like?”  Kita came in with another punch and potential grapple hold, Tae dodged and grabbed Kita’s wrist to perform a grapple hold of his own, but realized too late that he wasn’t blocking the Psi.  The bite of the artificial Telepathic interference and thrust of Kita’s deep emotions hit him hard; he yelled in pain and fell backwards onto the floor.

With his eyes closed from pain Tae heard Kita’s firm voice.  “Concentrate, Taelin!”

Tae shook his head to get the ringing out of his ears and looked up at Kita as he offered a hand up off the carpeted floor.  Careful to shield this time, Tae took Kita’s hand and stood up.
There was a touch of amusement in Kita’s eyes as he continued their conversation.  “Actually, no I didn’t meet Hawk.”

They started sparring again and Tae was very careful to concentrate on the Telepathic shielding.  “Why not?  How’d he help you if you didn’t meet him?
Kita frowned slightly.  “Well, it was odd; I got a note from him.”
“A note?”
“Yeah…”  Kita smiled in amusement.  “The morning I’d planned to leave, I got a note on my desk with nothing but an exact time on it.  It happened to be nearly ten minutes after my planned escape time.  So, I figured why not wait and see why this time is so important.”   Kita blocked another attack and grabbed Tae’s wrist to pull him off balance, Tae reacted by turning his body around to counteract the move and they broke apart again.
“What happened?”  He prompted.

“Well, at that precise time some drama happened up the hallway from where I stood and it drew the guards away from the door.”  Tae tried a high kick and Kita deftly blocked it and spun Tae around as he continued.  “So then I ran for it.  Hilla Norman and her Cell were waiting at a safe distance to offer me a home.”

Tae frowned and dodged Kita’s next slow attack.  “So… How’d you know it was Hawk who left the note?”
“Well, aside from Hilla saying that Hawk had told them to pick me up?  Really, who else would it have been?”
Tae nodded in agreement.  “True, I guess.  Strange, though.”

“Yeah… Hawk seems to know everything.”
Tae frowned a little.  “Surely he can’t know everything?  What human can know everything?”
“True.  We’ll find out soon enough with the meeting in a few weeks time.  Now, d’you want to make this exercise harder?  We can go full speed now that you can talk and block at the same time.”

Tae hung his head slightly and nodded.  “Ok.”

24 Aran
(Fourteen days after Nala’s rescue)

*2*

“Ok, Tae, trust me; as someone with Psi PK ability you should be able to sense a PK thrust wave and either dodge it or counter it.  Now just focus!”

Tae was frustrated because Kita just wasn’t getting it.  He couldn’t sense anything at all until Tolan’s PK actually hit him and he’d said as much the last ten times they’d tried it.

He sighed.  “Ok, I’ll try again.”

Turning to face the tall thin form of Tolan Enan, Tae prepared himself to get hit again.  Tolan was a very high rating Psi PK but he hadn’t been formally rated because he hadn’t ever been in the Agency.  Everyone in Kita’s Cell knew that he was at least a 5/5 Psi PK mostly because he was actually born a paraplegic and his movement was purely due to his Psi PK ability. And he can throw cars at people, Tae reminded himself.  Throwing cars; in Tae’s opinion, had a definite element of awesome and definately proved his high ratings.  But right at that moment he didn’t really want to continue being the target of that awe inspiring Psi PK thrust because it hurt; it hurt a lot.

“Are you ready, Taelin?”  Tolan’s dark eyes widened questioningly at him.
Tae sighed and nodded.  “I suppose so.”

Tensely, he closed his eyes to focus on sensing Tolan’s PK thrust wave.

There was nothing.  Then the force that hit him pushed all the air out of his lungs.  He barely had the time to mentally swear before he hit the far wall hard and dropped to the ground.  He fell onto his side with his back up against the wall and his legs flailed around him randomly.  He lay there winded for a moment and tried to breathe properly again.  There didn’t seem to be any broken bones (thankfully) but he knew by tomorrow morning he’d be covered in bruises.

“Are you ok, Tae?”
“Yeah, what’s a little winding between friends…”  His tone under the wheeze was lightly sarcastic.

Kita crouched down next to him to offer him a hand up.  Tae took it and looked up into the deep blue eyes of his friend.  “You’ve got to keep trying, Taelin, you will eventually get it.”
Standing, Tae coughed.  “Not if it kills me first.”

Kita and Tolan gave him a serious look and Taelin smiled at them nearly laughing.  This was getting ridiculous.  He obviously couldn’t sense whatever it was yet.  In his opinion this was like trying to teach a kid to ride a bicycle who hadn’t yet learnt to walk.  He just wasn’t able to do it yet and no amount of throwing him around the room was going to change that.

He rubbed a sore spot on his elbow and walked back into position in the middle of the large meeting room.  Father Owen had arranged for Kita, Nama and himself to stay in the Cathedral to be close to Nala as she healed, partially to guard her and partially because none of them wanted to leave her alone.  Father Owen had also given them access to use the large blandly decorated meeting room for training.  Tae now wished futilely that the room had softer walls.  Shaking his arms to loosen the dull throb from multiple impacts, Tae started to prepare his mind for the inevitable sharp thrust and impact with the wall that would come again.

“Taelin, you need to concentrate.  If you can feel the PK when it leaves you, you should be able to feel PK when it comes at you.  Keep focusing, if we keep trying you’ll get there, it’s not that hard, seriously, once you get it you’ll find out how easy it is.”

Yeah, easy for you. He thought sarcastically.  He knew Tolan was trying to be friendly and helpful, but Tae still felt annoyed and badgered.  Looking up at the naked bulb above him and the clean white ceiling he prepared his mind again for the impact he knew would come.

He dropped his eyes from the ceiling to look again at Tolan.
“Ready?”  The young man said.
Tae nodded silently and closed his eyes with a sigh.

It was the same as last time; he felt the sensation of something pushing on his chest like a wave of force.  Then he lifted into the air and crashed bodily into the wall again.  As he landed on his side he found that this time he wasn’t nearly as winded as the last time, which was a small mercy, but a flare of pain in the hip he’d landed on told him that he had not avoided more bruises.

In his frustration he lifted one leg up to rest one elbow on and he glowered at his two companions.
“This isn’t working, you realize?”

Kita brushed absently at his shoulder length blond hair and smiled sympathetically.  “Yes.  It does seem that way.  But we’ve got try… at least until you break something.”

“Wonderful.”  Tae lifted one eye brow at Kita to show his complete lack of being impressed.  Then he got to his feet again.

As he stood in the middle of the room again with his eyes closed, he waited tensely.  This time about half a second before the wave lifted him up he felt something undefinable.  His mind couldn’t understand what he had sensed; only that it was something.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to react more than an instinctual bodily flinch before he was flying again.

Hitting the wall and falling he landed oddly on one elbow and sat up almost immediately to rub the stinging elbow joint.  Absolute frustration flared around him suddenly.  With a touch of surprise he felt the frustration flare around him and launch in one direction towards Tolan.  With practised ease, the tall thin man moved sideways to dodge the invisible wave and somehow deflected it back at him.

Tae’s wave held much less thrust than Tolan’s, but it was strong enough on it’s return flight to firmly push his head back and smack it hard into the wall behind him.

“Ow!”  Taelin put a hand to the back of his head where a new bruise was forming.  Seeing the obserdity of the entire situation he started to laugh.  After a moment or two of stunned silence the other two joined his laughter.

He grinned absurdly up at them from the floor as he rubbed the back of his head.  “This is so dumb.  Can we please break for lunch now?”

25 Aran
(The next day)

*3*

Taelin shrugged.  “Kita’s given up trying to teach me, he says I’m not trying hard enough.”

The bruising and swelling in Nala’s rounded oval face had gone down so that she finally looked like herself again.  She was sitting up in bed with pillows all around her and a broad smile on her face.

She chuckled happily. “You never do as you’re told.  You’re such a menace, Taelin Kaan.”
“Who, me?  Naw.”  Feining innocence he laughed with her.
“Maybe Nama can get you to behave.”
“As long as he doesn’t let Tolan throw me around any more I’ll be happy.  I’ve got bruises upon bruises and I swear if Tolan tells me one more time that it’s easy, I’m going to strangle him, disabled or no.”  He gave her a playful wink and she chuckled.

The small sleeping room fell into a comfortable silence and he watched her fiddle absently at the holes in her faded blanket with her free hand.  The doctor friend of Father Owen had put an enormous cast on Nala’s other arm.  The cast covered her entire arm; most of her hand right up to under her armpit.  It lay next to her up on many pillows and bent at an almost right angle.   To him it looked incredibly uncomfortable and he stared at the cast absently with an almost mournful look on his face.

The fingers that hung loosely out of the end of the cast wiggled at him and she chuckled playfully.  Her laugh was bubbly, playful and completely unsuppressed.  He couldn’t help but grin at her; it was great to hear her laugh again.

The door behind him opened and they both looked up to see Nama step through.  A square hand lifted and waved at Nala.  “Hey, Nala, hope you don’t mind I need to steal Tae from you.”
As Tae stood Nala replied gently.  “Is he getting thrown around again, today?”

Nama smiled and seemed to nearly laugh.  “No, I think his bruises need a rest, so we’re doing something different today.”
Tae stood in the doorway next to Nama and as he left the room he gave Nala one last smile and a wink.

He and Nama walked down the long dark stone hallway towards the stairwell.  He gave Nama a suspicious sidelong glance.  “So… what torture are we trying today?”
“You’re really not enjoying this training are you Taelin?”

He laughed sarcastically.  “What is there to like?  Two weeks of training and I’ve been thrown around that small meeting room by Tolan till I’m bruised black and blue, Kita runs circles around me telepathically so that I have a migraine twice the size of my head by the time I get to bed, and all the while aside from being able to touch folks again without pain I’ve had no other progress… oh… I’m ecstatic with all the training.”

Nama’s odd light brown eyes looked sideways at him; there was no emotion in his face just a strange calmness.  “Well then, why the heck are you still here?”

There was a twitch of a smile in Nama’s lips and Tae laughed at his old friend.  “Maybe I enjoy the bruises… ever thought of that?  Seriously though, Nama, what are we doing today?”

Nama’s voice was quiet and he sensed a deliberate mysteriousness in his friend.
“We’re going visiting.”

They came out of the long dark stone hallway and stepped into a sunny wide open spiral stairwell that led down to the ground floor of the Cathedral.  “Visiting?  Visiting who?”

* * *

The battered off-white door had an insect screen in front of it.  When he opened the screen door and knocked on the doorframe sheets of sun-damaged paint came off and attached to his fist.

He brushed the paint away with a frown and looked up just in time to see a shortish woman run through the doorway and practically jump at him.  She wrapped her arms around his neck in an excited hug.  “You came!  Oh, you came!”

It took a few moments for him to recognize Rachel from the Casino.  She’d dyed her hair from dark brown to nearly blood red and cut it short around her face.  Lifting his hands to pat her on the back he uncomfortably returned her hug.

When she let go of him and looked at him with her clear green eyes he saw a changed woman.  She was happy and confident; her brilliant green eyes practically shone at him with her renewed sense of self.

He smiled broadly at her.  “How are you, Rachel?”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door.  “I want you to meet someone, would you meet someone for me?”

Her rounded face turned to look at him again as they stopped in the doorway.  She looked a little afraid for a moment and without even intruding Tae sensed that the woman was uncertain: she had fallen for someone but didn’t trust her own judgment.

He gave her a relaxed confident smile to reassure her.  “Of course I can meet someone, why wouldn’t I want to meet a friend of yours?”

She smiled at him, her confidence and happiness overcoming her doubt again and she pulled him fully through the doorway by one hand.

They stood in a small sunny parlor, everything was dusty and falling apart.  Above him rose a small cramped stairwell, the red carpet that ran up the stairs towards the second floor was faded and warn down in places.  In front of him an open door led to a room flooded with sunlight, and to his left and right closed doors lead to other rooms of the compact house.

“He’s in his final year at the local university.  He’s so smart, top of his class, and he’s already got an internship at the MCC mega-tower in town, they say if he graduates at the top of his class they’re going to give him a management job immediately!  He’s smart and handsome, and he’s so nice too!”  She was nervous.  He wasn’t sure why she thought he could tell her if this man was a good choice, especially as they barely knew each other.  But it was oddly nice to be in the company of someone who wasn’t a Rebel.  There was a calmness to her that none of the Rebels had; himself included.

He let a frown crease his face.  “When did you meet him?  Isn’t it a bit quick?”
She blushed then and gave him an embarrassed look.  “Oh, no!  I’ve known him for years; we went to high school together… well…”  She paused to roll her eyes and make a dismissive gesture with one hand.  “Before I had to drop out.  I hadn’t seen him for ages, but then I met him again the day after you organized those papers for me.  I was on the bus on my way to a job interview.”

She turned away from him to look upstairs and yell loudly.  “Coan!”
Taelin tried not to chuckle at the young woman’s nervousness and his new apparent role as adoptive uncle and potential man filter.  The sound of feet came towards the stairwell and he looked up.  The man who walked down the stairs looked young maybe even only just a man; that was how young he looked.

Light blue eyes looked down at him from the stairs with a touch of suspicion and his oval face was framed at gelled angles by dark brown hair.  Rachel let go of Tae’s hand and stepped up to the base of the stairs.  He sensed a mutual flare of adoration and love between the two of them.

“Coan, do you remember me telling you about the men who rescued me and that other woman?”  The man reached the bottom of the stairs and took her outstretched hands as he nodded silently.

Tae sensed that this man loved her, and that their feelings were a mutual and developing deep genuine love.  There was no sense in this man of possessing her and no sense of violence or rage in him.  In fact, Tae would have been very surprised if the man had seen any hardship or trauma in his life at all.  He seemed like the kind of man Tae would approve of if Rachel really was his niece.

“This is Taelin, he’s one of the men who saved me.”
The man stepped around Rachel and offered Tae a hand to shake.

They shook and he gave the man a firm confident smile.  The man’s returning smile was friendly and open.  “Well, it’s nice to meet you.  Rachel refuses to tell me more of the story.  I don’t suppose you…?”
Tae interrupted him firmly.  “No, I’m sorry.  The less you know the better.”

Tae turned to face Rachel’s round happy face and smiled gently at the young woman.  “It looks like you’ll be ok now, Rachel.”
Realising what he was saying to her, she smiled broadly at him.  “Can you stay for lunch?”
Tae nodded slowly, the grin on his face widening.  “I might.”

8 Milana
(30 days after Nala’s rescue)

*4*

Tolan was much darker than the other Rebels; in fact he didn’t look Aranan at all. Had interbreeding been legal and not a gross sacrilege to the Five Nation Religion of the Founder, Nala would have thought that Tolan was a mixture of the Tolaan people and the Kranan people. He had their dark nearly copper red coloring and black hair. He had the tall, thin body type similar to the Tolaan people, and the nearly black dark brown eyes of the Kranan people. It was quite a beautiful combination. But, she had been told that Tolan was actually Aranan and had various reasons for his appearance; the most striking ones being that he lay in the sun as often as he could to get the coppery tan and that his thinness was due to not having any muscle tone because his disability.

Tolan stood in front of Taelin and Nama. He looked a little anxious.
“Ok, Tae, go again.” Nama’s voice was calm and patient.  In front of her, Tae’s handsome face frowned with concentration.

Nala shuffled in her seat trying to get comfortable in the large meeting room. Her cast lay on the nearby table, but it rested at an odd angle which made her shoulder ache somewhat, however it was less uncomfortable than the sling she’d been given.

Standing to one side of her, but in front of Tae, Tolan continued to look nervous. Quite suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped to the matted floor like a rag doll.

“That’s good you’re getting quicker, Tae.” Nama stood next to Taelin in the middle of the room with his back almost completely facing her.

The room around them was oblong, with no windows, a high roof, white modern walls and cheap floor covering. In one corner someone had stacked a bunch of chairs and a fairly large table, at which she sat watching their training. It had been a nice luxury to be able to come and watch the training that day; she’d been going mad with boredom in the sleeping room.

On the opposite wall a plain wooden door opened and quietly let someone into the room. Father Owen smiled in her direction and walked slowly around the three practicing men towards her.

For some reason she liked Father Owen. He was a calm quiet individual; he wasn’t particularly shy just that he wasn’t loud or boisterous. She could sense that there was a depth to him that no one else saw and yet at the same time he also seemed to live a simple and uncomplicated life.

His face was square and would have looked quite harsh if the edges hadn’t been smoothed and rounded along his cheekbones and chin line. His light brown hair was cut fairly short and seemed to somehow lighten his face and blue eyes.

As he approached her his smile widened and she grinned. “Hello, Father Owen.”
“Hello, Nala, how are you feeling today?” His voice was calm, deep and somehow also gentle.
She indicated an empty chair next to her for him to sit down in.  “Much better, thank you. How are you?”

Father Owen slowly sat down next to her. As he bent she sensed a spark of pain from him and even though there was no obvious body flinch or tensing to support the sense of pain she innately trusted in her healing sense. She frowned slightly.  “I am fine thank you, Nala. How is Taelin’s training going today?”

She chuckled. “He’s gotten the hang of making Tolan sleep, though I wonder if he’s taking far too much glee in it after that entire week of Tolan throwing him around.”
Father Owen laughed slightly and turned to watch the three men.

Nama looked in their direction with a quick smile and eyebrow rise of acknowledgement, then returned his focus back to Tae. “Ok, Tae, lets wake up Tolan again, he’s probably sick of this already.”

On the floor Tolan’s curled up form moaned as he started to wake up. The waking up part of the exercise seemed a lot slower than the going to sleep part and she wondered if she’d get to learn how to do it herself sometime.

“Are you happy to go back to base now, Tolan?”
Tolan stood slowly. “Yeah. Definitely.” And without any more encouragement the dark man turned and left the room swiftly.

“Ok, Tae, now we need to focus on the skills you’re going to need for this meeting on the twelfth.”
“Oh? What are they?”
“Well, you need to learn how to change your Telepathic volume and learn narrow-shaft communication.” Nama turned to face her and smiled slightly. “Can we borrow you for a second, Nala?”

She frowned a little uncertainly, but then shrugged. “Sure, where do you need me?”
“You can stay where you are, just let us know if you hear anything Telepathically.”

“Ok, Taelin, this is a wide-shaft communication. What this means is that everyone who is Telepath Psi and within a certain radius of us will hear what I’m saying. Can you hear me Nala?”
Nala smiled. “Clear as day.”

“Ok, now this is narrow shaft communication…” The sudden mental silence was almost audible to Nala and she waited as Nama obviously continued his lesson. As she watched and waited Tae’s face frowned slightly with concentration and then a few seconds later at the same time the two men looked directly at her.  Tae’s blue eyes stared at her in surprise as if waiting for a reaction from her.

She frowned. “What?”
“You didn’t hear that?” Tae asked with surprise.
She shook her head. “No. What did he say?”
Tae blushed slightly. “Never mind, Nama was just teasing me.”

Next to her, Father Owen cleared his throat as if to speak and the two men paused.
“Do you two need Nala for a while? If she’s willing,” Father Owen looked at her with a gentle smile, “I need her help with something.”

She blinked at him while Nama’s distracted voice responded in the background.  “Of course, Father Owen.”

He nodded slightly and carefully stood up. She followed him out of the meeting room through the door and into the area that connected the seven meeting rooms together. He closed the door behind them and turned to look at her with an oddly tense look in his blue eyes.

“I’d like to ask a favor of you, Nala.” His voice was quiet and gentle. “But I need you to promise me a couple of things, first.”  She frowned and wondered briefly what kind of thing he could be needing her to help with, then he continued.  “I need you to give me your word that you will not speak of this favor to anyone, not even Taelin. And I need you to not ask any questions.”

Her frown deepened but she deliberately turned her uncertainty into a joke. “As long as you’re not asking me to sleep with you or do something to hurt the Rebels, I can probably do it.”
“It’s nothing so earth shattering.” He grinned widely and indicated the door of another meeting room.

When the door was closed he stood there a moment in silence and she looked up at him expectantly. He took a deep breath and flinched.  “Can you heal with one hand, Nala?”

She laughed suddenly as all the tension left her. “Of course! Sit down in that chair and show me.”

There was a touch of mischief in his smile as he sat down and lifted the edge of his robes up. The priest robes he wore were in two sections: loose black pants with a black long-sleeved shirt that draped over the pants with the hemline sitting near his knees. As he lifted the hem of the shirt he revealed a rather decently bloodied bandage that wrapped around the bottom of his ribs.

Reaching with her free hand she gently touched the palm of her hand to his side just below the bleeding. Closing her eyes she felt the throbbing pain of a gunshot wound that had already been stitched up, but was pulsing quite badly with the pain of pulled and ripped stitches. She started to ask him how a priest got shot but remembered that he’d asked for no questions.

“You should be in bed not walking around the Cathedral making this worse.”

She felt her heart open up with a deep compassion for his pain, and as always, her compassion somehow “turned on” the flow of healing energy which pulsed deeply through her body out her hand and into the injury to start lifting out the layers of pain.

His replying voice was quiet and low, almost sad. “Sometimes the duty to the cause takes precedence over the duty to oneself.”